Unions dominate list of NDP’s biggest donors

BCGEU tops party’s donation list at $1.4 million

Leader of the NDP Adrian Dix speaks to the crowd at the Labour Day Picnic at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver last summer. Over the past eight years, 25 per cent of the party’s donations have come from its top 20 donors — many of them unions.

Photograph by: Ric Ernst
, PROVINCE

If the B.C. NDP wins the next election, one of the many challenges Premier Adrian Dix will face will be reaching a new collective agreement with his biggest political benefactor.

The B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union poured more than $1.4 million into the party’s coffers over the past eight years, more than any other donor, a Vancouver Sun analysis has found.

The BCGEU’s contract, which gives its 26,000 members a four-per-cent wage increase over two years, expires in March 2014.

At that point, an NDP government would be in the difficult position of protecting the public purse while negotiating with its largest financial backer.

The BCGEU isn’t the only big union donor to the NDP which, during the party’s first term, would likely be making demands for improved wages and benefits paid for by taxpayers.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents tens of thousands of school support staff, paramedics and post-secondary workers in B.C., is the third-largest donor to the party, at $1.2 million.

And the Hospital Employees Union, whose members faced contracting-out and ripped-up contracts under the B.C. Liberals, has given the NDP $794,358, making it the party’s fifth-biggest donor overall.

It’s well-known that unions are big supporters of the NDP, just as corporations bankroll the B.C. Liberals.

But a detailed analysis of eight years of donation data by The Vancouver Sun reveals stark differences between the two party’s biggest supporters.

All but two of the Liberals’ largest donors are corporations, many of them in the resource industry.

And of the 20 largest donors to the NDP, 13 are unions and just two — the Aquilini group of companies and Canadian Forest Products — are corporations. The rest are individuals who left the party money in their wills.

Reliance on deep pockets

In absolute dollar terms, the two lists are quite similar: in both cases, the party’s top 20 donors gave each party about $10 million combined.

But because the Liberals have been more successful fundraisers overall — raising more than $75 million over the past eight years compared with $40 million for the NDP — the NDP’s top donors make up a much greater share of their total funds.

Of all the money the NDP has raised over the past eight years, 25 per cent of it has come from just its top 20 biggest donors. In contrast, the Liberals’ top 20 donors make up just 13 per cent of its total.

Dix has already made some commitments that have proved popular with unions and their members.

During a speech at the HEU’s convention last year, Dix promised to restore HEU members’ successorship rights, so unions can stay when health authority contracts change hands.

Dix has vowed to slow contracting out, restore unions’ involvement in apprenticeship programs and has strongly hinted he will do away with the secret ballot for certification drives, a move that would make it easier for unions to organize.

Despite the BCGEU’s generosity to the NDP, president Darryl Walker said he doesn’t expect the NDP to give his union an easy ride.

“Frankly, we’re very concerned about the state of the [provincial] finances. We suspect that not only are the cupboards bare, but they’ve probably taken some of the shelves to burn them to keep the house warm,” he said. “This union is realistic [and] what we’re looking for is a fair and reasonable deal.”

A pledge to limit donors

Can money influence some politicians and the decisions they make? Former NDP leader Carole James, who is running for re-election in Victoria-Beacon Hill, said in an interview she believes it can — which is why the NDP wants to ban union and corporate donations if the party forms government.

However, James, who has always sat in opposition, denied an NDP government would feel beholden to public-sector unions when it comes time to negotiate their contracts.

“It won’t influence us, and that’s why we’ve announced that we’re going to bring in these changes because we believe it is important to deal with that perception,” said James, the NDP’s campaign platform co-chair.

She said Dix has given consistent messages to both business and labour — that there is little money in public coffers right now. “He’s been very upfront about the difficult economic times ... the challenges we are going to face with both business and labour.”

“During the [Glen] Clark years and [Mike] Harcourt years, there were not huge gains negotiated at the bargaining tables that were outlandish by any stretch,” he said. “[The NDP’s] not going to be shovelling money off the back of a truck.”

What public-sector unions would expect from an NDP government, said Hancock, is a change of tone and a genuine commitment to collective bargaining.

“Probably what it does is it sets the table a little differently,” he said. “You have a different relationship with employers.”

HEU secretary-business manager Bonnie Pearson said “my experience in negotiating with New Democratic governments is that they are as tough and sometimes tougher in terms of the positions that they take because of the allegations of bias toward the unionized sector.”

Steve Hunt, Western Canada director for the United Steelworkers — the NDP’s fourth-biggest donor at $1 million — said his 40,000 members in mining and forestry hope an NDP government puts more resources into keeping struggling sawmills open and reduces the reliance on foreign workers in B.C. mines.

But while Hunt said he expects a more sympathetic ear from an NDP government than a Liberal one, his union doesn’t expect to get everything it wants.

“We don’t have expectations that because we contribute ... that it somehow gives us a free ticket. It doesn’t,” he said. “Big labour doesn’t control the NDP. You should go to a B.C. Fed convention. We can’t control our ourselves.”

Not just about labour

Union leaders interviewed by The Sun stressed that their support for the NDP goes beyond labour issues of direct interest to their members and includes support for the party’s overall philosophy on issues such as health and education.

Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour — the NDP’s second-largest donor at $1.3 million — said he hopes an NDP government not only makes life easier for union members but improves conditions for non-union workers, as well.

He would like to see an NDP government beef up enforcement of employment standards violations, increase the minimum wage, and restore the four-hour call-out so if a worker is called in from home they get at least four hours of paid work instead of the current two.

Sinclair said he doesn’t expect everything his organization wants to be implemented by an NDP government. But he’s confident some of it will get done.

“I don’t think there’s any question that some of the changes we’re looking for will be realized,” he said. “[But] there’s been nothing committed to the labour movement on any of these files at all.”

But while Sinclair expects a more union- and worker-friendly government if the NDP forms power, he doesn’t think his organization’s million-dollar contribution to the party is the reason.

“We want working people to be better off and that’s what the NDP wants,” he said.

Sinclair said people who see corruption or undue influence in big union donations have got the situation backwards.

The NDP isn’t pro-union because of the donations it receives from unions, he argues. Rather, it receives support and donations from unions because its policies on labour and other issues are attractive to union members.

“If we didn’t donate that money, they’d still have the same value system,” he said.

And Sinclair extends that same benefit of the doubt to the Liberals and its many corporate donors.

“I think the Liberals did a very good job of representing [business] interests,” he said. “Would they still if [corporations] didn’t give money to them? I think they probably would.”

Sinclair noted, for example, that a ban on corporate donations at the federal level hasn’t stopped a pro-business government from taking office in Ottawa.

“Stephen Harper has run an incredibly right-wing government. It’s been favourable to corporations completely,” he said. “[But] he doesn’t get donations from them.”

The Vancouver Sun focused its analysis on the Liberals and NDP because those are the two parties that have received the bulk of campaign contributions since 2005, with $76 million and $40 million respectively. In contrast, the Green party in B.C. has received about $1 million in donations, while the B.C. Conservatives raised half a million.

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Leader of the NDP Adrian Dix speaks to the crowd at the Labour Day Picnic at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver last summer. Over the past eight years, 25 per cent of the party’s donations have come from its top 20 donors — many of them unions.

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